Reviewer
ARTIST: Jesse McReynolds & Friends
ALBUM: Songs Of The Grateful Dead: A Tribute to Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter (Woodstock Records)
YOU might not know it, but Jesse McReynolds is a legend.
He is a bluegrass pioneer, for decades on the Grand Ole Opry as part of Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys. The famed duo with his brother continued until Jim’s untimely death in 2002, now he carries on as on his own.
Besides Bill Monroe (who would gladly tell you that he invented bluegrass), McReynolds is one of the world’s top mandolin players, in fact, he even has a style named after him “McReynolds crosspicking.”
Obviously a departure, this record came about in part because his new wife is a Grateful Dead fan, and the timeless music resonated with McReynolds. From the first strums of McReynold’s mandolin on “Black Muddy River,” you know you’re in for a treat. McReynold’s voice is capable, and he digs deep into the lyric. But it’s his sure handedness, his perfectly even strum, that’s been played from the biggest stages in the world to the cozy country mountains of southwest Virginia, home if his youth, that gives this record weight.
Full story in The Daily Freeman
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